Polycules

Polycules began as a simple visualisation of how relationships between people are determined by external pressures. Marriage and monogamy, patriarchy and cis-heteronormativity; these institutions and norms all restrict and control the ways we love and interact with one another. 

Hopefully you've had a go before you started reading. If not, I'd love for you to take two minutes to try now before reading on; you could even leave a comment describing how you played it!

Back? What did you think? It's not exactly fun, but while building and testing I've always enjoyed the microdramas of the particles forming and breaking relationships, how large boxes end up congregating in the corners forming an organised superstructure, and seeing what the final polycules look like when left undisturbed.

As you've probably figured out, the boxes represent the aforementioned social norms. Imposed from above by the player they force the particles not only into monogamous couples, but triads and even larger formations, cutting them off from those outside.

Left to their own devices the particles may end up in those very same formations, maybe for a time, maybe forever. To borrow a term from existentialism they are radically free, with the terrifying responsibility that that entails. Social norms can be comforting; they provide security and a place for us to fit in. We consent to external structures like marriage, monogamy, and exclusive polymorous relationships to try and protect ourselves from the fear of someone new coming along and blowing our lives apart. This fear is the price of radical freedom.

And even those who choose freedom are still put in boxes by others, made to interact with them on the terms of the structures they uphold. 

Anyways, those are the thoughts that inspired this game; let me know if you think any of that came through in the end result!

[And for those who wanna get extra pretentious, I started reading Deleuze while building this and realised that it's actually a reasonable simulation of the body-without-organs, his and Guattari's model of the psyche. As partial objects that combine to make larger objects the particles make partial connections with one another and engage in inclusive disjunctions by breaking apart and forming new groups, only becoming fixed when captured by social repression which traps their desire in a segregated system, much like the nuclear family, and eventually leads them to catatonia. Like I said, extra pretentious, but for anyone interested in Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus this might provide some food for thought!]